To be a leader, or not to be. Since the beginning of time, human societies have consistently produced leaders. Whether in tribes, kingdoms, corporations, religious institutions, or families, certain individuals are entrusted with guiding others toward a common goal. The head, the chief, the king, the president; all different terms for the exact same phenomenon: leadership.

Yet as ancient as the practice of leadership is, true mastery of it remains elusive. The aspiring leader still struggles to define what leadership actually means, or how to execute it when given the writ of authority.

The reason for this difficulty in finding the right method for leadership is the same reason the subject of economics can be tricky sometimes - human behaviour. Yes, human behaviour is the one thing that makes every leadership book and format only conditionally true, as humans are the most erratic entities in nature. It's hard to fully predict human behaviour, even a person can't fully predict what they'll do the next day. As such, being a leader over a group of humans is one of the most headache inducing activities one can ever embark on.

So much is given to a leader (trust, control, hope, etc) so a lot is expected of them. There is a higher allocation of forgiveness for the follower who gets it wrong, than there is for the leader. This is only fair as any wrong action taken by a leader doesn't just affect them but all under them. A random person can insult an ethnic group, for example, and everyone looks away. A leader does the same, and there's a problem. This is only natural.

Therefore it is important that the leader get it right, no matter how troublesome their followers are. Yet, in attempting to navigate the erratic nature of those they lead, many leaders overlook the most volatile human element in the room: themselves. If human behavior is an unpredictable maze, a leader cannot hope to guide others through it without first mapping the terrain of their own mind. This is where the journey truly begins, not with the management of others, but with the management of self, and the management of self begins with the knowledge of self.